A Key to the Suite Read Free

wouldn’t collapse with joy.
    A soft chime summoned a bellhop who led Hubbard to the proper bank of elevators. They walked a long way down the total silence of the eighth floor. A housekeeping cart stood outside the open door of 847. A brawny monochromatic woman in white was stripping the twin beds. She looked at them with total hostility.
    “This was supposed to be ready,” the bellhop said.
    “So who says suppose? So who knows about ready? Do forty-seven she says, so I do it.”
    “So do it,” the bellhop said.
    “It’s all right,” Hubbard said. “It doesn’t matter.” He tipped the boy. The room smelled of stale cigar and a faint pungency of perfume. He took off his hat and jacket and loosened his tie. Sliding a glass door aside, he stepped out onto a tiny triangularterrace, just big enough for the chaise fashioned of aluminum and plastic webbing and one small metal table. The vertical sawtooth construction of the side of the building gave the terraces the illusion of privacy. A tall glass containing a collapsed straw, an inch of pale orange liquid, and a poisonous-looking cherry stood on the railing. He leaned on the railing and looked down at orderly arrangements of acres of sun cots, at two pools, one Olympic and the other larger and freeform, at a thatched bar and a pagoda bar, at the empty alignment of outdoor tables and chairs, and the lush calligraphy of the planting areas. The sun was behind him, shining on tall pale distant buildings, leaving the area below him in blue-gray shadow.
    The woman came out and snatched the glass, looked around for other debris, snorted and went back into the room. “Now it’s done!” she bellowed a few minutes later. As he turned, the corridor door slammed shut.
    He unpacked. Jan had done well. But there was no fond funny note, no silly present for him. Of course, he told himself, she had no time for such nonsense. Not this time. The room had the sterility of a place where no one had ever lived. The little stains and abrasions and scars had been cleverly added to make him believe he was not the last living man in the world. The machines did not want him to be too lonely, so they added these subliminal clues.
    He ordered up juice, eggs, cocoa and a morning paper. After he finished, he pushed the cart out into the hall, closed the terrace door, pulled the draperies shut. He turned a bedlight on, showered, put on his pajamas, got into bed. By then it was late enough to place the call to Jan.
    “Was it a good trip, dear?” she asked. Her voice was dimmed by the humming distance, flat and uninvolved.
    “They tried to cut us off at the waterhole, but we fought our way out.”
    “What? I couldn’t hear you, dear. Mike was bellering.”
    “It was okay. I got some sleep.”
    “That’s good. Mike wants to talk to you.”
    “Daddy! Daddy! You know what, Daddy! I’m
limping
!”
    “Now how about that!”
    “When you come home I’ll be
limping
! Are you coming home now?”
    “Pretty soon, boy.” When Jan came back on the line he said, “What’s with the limp?”
    “It’s very convincing, when he doesn’t forget which leg it is. He turned his ankle and demanded a bandage. How’s the weather there?”
    “Tropical. By the way, I’m in eight forty-seven.”
    “Have a truly hilarious convention, dear.”
    “Thanks so much. This won’t be a picnic. You know what I have to do.”
    Her voice was inaudible for a moment. “… not many picnics for anybody any more. I miss them. Thanks for calling. Keep in touch, dear.”
    “I will. I will indeed. Love you.”
    “Also, of course. Rest up, if they give you the chance. ’Bye.”
    After he hung up he had a premonition of what could happen. The district man, whichever one had been stuck with the mechanics of the arrangements for the AGM group, would be over to check everything out. And he would find Hubbard was already registered and in, and he would feel terribly anxious to make certain that Mr. Hubbard was